S2E09 - Periodic (the Periodic Table) - Gaming with Science

Episode Transcript
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Jason (00:00):
Jason, hello

(00:06):
and welcome to the gaming withScience Podcast, where we talk
about the science behind some ofyour favorite games.

Brian (00:12):
Today, we're talking about periodic by genius games.
Hello. Welcome back to gamingwith science. This is Brian

Jason (00:20):
this is Jason

Brian (00:21):
and we are joined by Dr Raychelle Burks, Raychelle,
could you introduce yourselfplease?

Raychelle (00:26):
Yes, I am Raychelle Burks, I am a chemist and a
forensic scientist.

Brian (00:32):
Well, I'm so glad you're able to join us today. We were
just talking about, let's seeyou said that your Instagram
handle is radium, yttrium, andyou'rr Dr. rubidium. And this is
game is all about the periodictable. You use three different
elements in your sort of socialor media, like internet handles.
So I think we got the rightperson for this.

Raychelle (00:51):
I hope so.

Jason (00:52):
And just to give a bit more information to our
listeners, you said you're atAmerican University in
Washington, DC, right?

Raychelle (00:57):
Yes, the and actually, it's funny, because
it's like, it is AmericanUniversity. What a wild name for
a school. We have a lot ofuniversities, but it is one
that's kind of got acongressional mandate. There
was, you know, back in the day,they were like, we are going to
have the American University.And it's like, it didn't quite
work out,

Brian (01:16):
but that's interesting. So you said there's a
congressional mandate. So thisis kind of like, we're at the
University of Georgia. We're aland grant institution, so we
sort of have this mission thatthe university is supposed to
satisfy you. You are in asimilar situation.

Raychelle (01:29):
It's, well, it's weird, you know, I went to a
land grant institution, so I'm aproud corn Husker. That's where
I got my PhD. So University ofNebraska at Lincoln and so land
grant institutions, definitely abit different, right? Because
you're taxpayer money, there'ssome property involved, and you
have a mandate, you have anextension office. I believe you
have a fantastic extensionoffice. I think all state

(01:52):
residents you know, have theability to have, like, a library
card and come to a universityevent, like there's a real
community kind of based thing.And in a way, American actually
also has that many universitiesdo, especially for the
neighborhood they're in. ButAmerican University is actually
chartered by Congress, like, wayback in the day, I think it's
1893 is this a pop quiz now? Butso it's, it's an interesting

(02:21):
history that that kind of comesabout.

Brian (02:25):
Well, very cool. Let's see. So, so we're here to talk
about the game periodic bygenius games. This is another in
our genius games roster, which Ifigure eventually we'll be
working our way through all ofthe genius games games at some
point or another. But this isour second chemistry game. So
we're excited to talk about it,but really, this game is about
the periodic table specifically,which is very cool, and I

(02:48):
definitely have questions, soI'm excited to have somebody
here to to give answers. But whydon't we start with our science
banter topic? So what have welearned or found studies
something interesting in theworld of science today. So we
usually let our guests go firstif they've got something, if
not, Jason has something queuedup

Raychelle (03:08):
well, as a forensic scientist, I will say I spent a
lot of time kind of in crime. Imean, hey, Okay,

Brian (03:17):
makes sense.

Raychelle (03:19):
And so, you know,

Brian (03:20):
so does CSI, does this show CSI drive you insane? It
must, oh,

Raychelle (03:24):
you know, it's because I know it's fiction. And
you know, there's a lot of like,I'm sure, you know, if you ask
an astronomer, physicist, youknow, it's like, Oh, does this
show drive you like, there'ssome good bits, there's some bad
bits. So I would say, ifanything, it'd be like Breaking
Bad, where you're, like, the onetime we've got a full-time
chemistry show, it's a methcook?

Brian (03:48):
Well crime, you know, there you go.

Raychelle (03:49):
But crime, you know? But I would say one of the
stories that I came across was,you know, we see some of the
same elements as kind of like,culprits, right? People are
like, sure, sure, arsenic, likewe get, you know, thallium,
right? People are very familiarwith that, not only because of
news stories, but because ofkind of historical crime

(04:11):
fiction. I mean, if you know,you've seen it, Agatha Christie,
you're like, is it going to bearsenic? You know? But there are
other elements that you're like,Excuse me, like you just you
don't see them as often. So itjust seems really wild. And it
really caught my attention. Icame across a story involving
molybdenum, molybdenum.

Jason (04:32):
Oh, wait, it's not molybdenum? Have I been saying
that wrong my entire life?

Raychelle (04:35):
No, no, it's Don't, don't, because we I will
pronounce things as I like them.

Brian (04:41):
I think in Biology, we usually say it's a molybdenum
cofactor. I've never heard thisother pronunciation, but I'm
going to start using it

Raychelle (04:47):
and that, that is my new and exciting way to say it.
But, yeah, don't, don't go byme, because I will also, in a
weird way. I went to a yearabroad in England, in college,
and I will actually sayaluminium. And but to me, I It
helps me actually remember howto spell it. I mean, it makes
sense. Alu-mini-um, right? Sowhen I pronounce it molybdenum,

(05:11):
that's literally to help meremember, oh, it's Molly, a B, a
D, like, because I'm like, Ilove how they spell these
elements sometimes where it'sjust wacky. Well, for us English
speakers, we're like, did youreally put a Y, a B and a D,
like, right next to each other?But to have the we just don't
hear about this element. Yeah,right. And you know, even

(05:35):
though, of course, like a lot ofyour metals, the kind of shared
impact, you know, kind of,quote, heavy metal poisoning,
where you're going to see thesame types of symptoms, but you
usually it's like, the same oldheavy metals, you know, like,
you're like, your lead

Jason (05:53):
lead mercury, arsenic...

Raychelle (05:55):
the usual suspects. And that's why this was, like,
it's like a twist in a Datelineepisode, where you're like, you
mean, it wasn't the husband,

Brian (06:04):
so this is

Jason (06:05):
so what happened with it?

Brian (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, what was the story?

Unknown (06:08):
It really kind of affected cattle. And that's the
thing. Is, this wasn't a humanpoisoning. Is that some of the
features you know, your your GIdistress, joint pain that should
sound familiar to folks thatkind of clock, some of these
metallic poisoning things. Butthere's also a big part of crime

(06:29):
that involves, like, wildliferelated like people will
actually, like, try to hurt eachother's cattle or try to poison
crops, right? Like, sabotagelevel tomfoolery. And so it was
about, you know, the real impactof this on this livestock, and
then how did they kind of map itout and kind of get to the root

(06:50):
of things? And so it, you know,that kind of a crime. Sometimes
we're so focused onhuman-involving action, which I
understand why we all do, but tojust see how they apply the same
type of toxicology work and,like sleuthing to be like, who
is poisoning these cows was,like, really interesting to me.
But again, also, because it'sjust an element that, I mean,

(07:14):
it's just not one that we talkabout. It's not, you know, one
of the most when we talk, like,biologically, you're like, yeah,
yeah, it's the same sevenelements. Okay, you know, a lot
of time on carbon, a lot oftime, you know, and you got your
coinage metals, and you're like,sure, sure, snooze fest. But
when you hear something that'slike an element that even you

(07:34):
forgot about as a chemist, iskind of like, Oh,

Brian (07:39):
I'm trying to think so there are, there's a surprising
number of elements, the microtrace elements you need, like
Selenium, and you need a littlebit of cobalt, and you need, I
think you probably do need, alittle bit of molybdenum. And
there's a couple of, what elseAm I forgetting? What are some
of the weird ones? You need somezinc. You need a little bit of
copper.

Raychelle (07:56):
Oh, you need plenty of zinc. Yeah.

Brian (07:58):
Oh, you do?

Raychelle (07:58):
You need copper. not too much, all right? Not too
much, but, but Selenium, and thefact that you said that, that is
another one where we know thatit's got some real positive
benefit, right, biologically. Sosometimes people will take and
they hear this, they hear asnippet in the news of, you
know, some, usually it's sometype of, you know, trace element

(08:19):
that is important from a tallowpoint, you know, and like the
research, gets interpreted asbeing like,

Brian (08:24):
they poison themselves. They completely overdo.

Unknown (08:27):
Yes, unfortunately. They a little bit go too far.
And as we know, too much of goodthing is actually bad.

Brian (08:34):
Yeah, that's, that's the classic human thing. Well, if a
little is good, then more mustbe better

Jason (08:38):
The dose makes the poison.

Raychelle (08:39):
And also sometimes dose makes the poison, but also
sometimes unit conversions, youknow, we know, if you're talking
about quote, micron,

Brian (08:51):
yeah, what is, what is, what is a microgram anyway,
right?

Raychelle (08:55):
But then somebody is like, Oh, they, they dispersed a
milligram. Yikes.

Brian (09:02):
I think having a mu symbol in the metric is probably
bad, because I've actually, haveyou seen this where people will
use these symbol fonts, and theneverything gets converted over
during the process of, like,inter converting a document, and
your little symbol font, muturns into an M, and all of a
sudden your microgram is amilligram,

Unknown (09:19):
yep. And you can see how it happens, right? And then
it's like, oh no. And it isthis, it's unfortunate. It is an
accident. It is a mishap. Andpeople, you know, sometimes
they're trying to do the rightthing, they think, okay, I take
my daily vitamin. I've taken abit of extra whatever. And you
can go too far. That's, that'sthe story of the periodic table.

(09:42):
You can, in fact go too far.

Brian (09:44):
So let's see. So the story was, some cows got heavy
metal poisoning from molybdenum,right? Is that the this was a
news story?

Unknown (09:51):
No, no, this was, I found it in a journal article.

Brian (09:54):
Oh, that's cool. Can you share that with us?

Raychelle (09:56):
but I also, I mean, I also go looking for these
things, sure, sure. Sure. Yeah.So you're like, Yeah, I just
casually came across this masspoisoning. I will share it with
you. It is, but I, you know,because of my background again,
I I kind of look for thesethings, which is that says
something, all right.

Brian (10:16):
What about you, Jason, did you find us anything cool?

Jason (10:18):
I did actually something related to this. I found glowing
plants. So I've always beenfascinated with luminescence,
and some of our listeners mayhave heard about like the
Firefly Petunia, which naturallyglows due to a light emitting
compound it creates.

Brian (10:33):
Well, not naturally. We had to make this.

Jason (10:35):
Yes, yeah, it was genetically engineered. This is
something else, actually. Itrelates to the game, because
what this group did is that theytook a bunch of micro particles,
so metallic micro particles thatwill naturally absorb light and
then re emit it over a longperiod of time, several hours,
and they injected it intosucculents, and they kind of
spread throughout the leaves,and they became these glowing

(10:55):
plants.

Brian (10:56):
What kind of particles are these? I've heard about
these aren't quantum nano dots.Are they?

Jason (10:59):
I don't that phrase was not used in the article.

Brian (11:03):
That's probably not it. Then,

Jason (11:04):
no, these are they called the micro particles because
they're in about the sevenmicron, micron size. It was
strontium aluminate, and bytweaking the chemistry or the
size, they could change thecolor. They have this wonderful
figure where they show a bunchof these little like succulent
rosettes in like red and orangeand green and blue. The problem
is that you have to inject everyleaf individually because they

(11:27):
don't spread very far throughoutthe plant. Okay? And they, I
mean, they did say that theyshowed no signs of toxicity in
the 10 days that they werefollowing them for the study. So

Brian (11:38):
I had plants that have been fine for 10 days without
having being watered.

Jason (11:43):
Okay? So there's a lot still to do here, because this
is definitely the sort of thingI can see, like, okay, at some
point, someone or someone's petis going to eat one of these. So
there need to be some safetystudies on those before they get
released. But it's still a coolthing, because they can make
this rainbow of colors. Theyhave this great figure showing
the different rainbow of it, andthen someone standing in front
of a plant, a glowing plantwall, where they just have a

(12:04):
bunch of these succulents up ona wall, and they're just kind of
glowing.

Brian (12:07):
I mean, that does sound amazing. Is the idea that this
is to be a consumer product. Isthat the intention?

Jason (12:13):
I think that's the end goal. I mean, I think the end
goal is that, I mean, it'sprobably going to be a novelty.
I mean, people keep talkingabout, oh, we'll make glowing
plants to replace lights atnight. It's like, I don't think
you can actually store enoughlight in a plant to do that

Brian (12:25):
yeah, energetically, that's going to really tax the
plant

Jason (12:28):
so, but they make really cool novelties. So

Brian (12:31):
okay, all right, that's that is weird and cool, and I'm
excited to see the wall ofrainbow plants. Thank you for
the wonderful chemical stories.But why don't we talk about the
game periodic. Okay, so periodicis from genius games, one of our
favorite board game companies,because they specialize in
producing games with a hardscience theme and usually a

(12:51):
strong educational component,although the games are designed
to be fun, not educational,because we've already learned
how educational is a dirty wordin the games industry. So the
designers of this game are JohnCoveyou, who is the founder of
genius games and has a designercredit on most, if not all, of
their games, as well as PaulSolomon, who has designed some
genius games, as well as somegames for some other companies.

(13:14):
He's done not only periodic, butalso genotype, which we did
earlier this season, as well asthe game virulence, which we
haven't played yet. Periodic isfor two to five players, we'll
play in about 40 minutes. Weplayed way faster than that. I
think it's always adjusted alittle bit by player count. I
think Jason and I had the gamedone at about half an hour, and
that was Jason's first timeplaying. So probably we could

(13:34):
get it done even faster thanthat, if we wanted to, but I
don't know why you would. Sowhat does the game look like?
The center of the game is aperiodic table. Well, it's an
incomplete periodic table. Theactinides and lanthanides are
completely just kicked out.They're not even shown. They're
not displayed.

Jason (13:51):
Those are for those who don't have that memorized. Those
are the two rows that are alwaysat the bottom, kind of floating
off by themselves.

Brian (13:58):
Yeah, if this is the map of the United States. That's
Hawaii. It's just kind of off onits own.

Raychelle (14:03):
Well, I have a little pushback about that, because
numerically, right? That wouldbe, like, you've removed the
Midwest, because it makes yourmap awkward. Shove it down by
Hawaii. Yeah, it makes it moresquare.

Brian (14:16):
We just take New Mexico and Arizona and just take them
out and just say, well, we'regoing to put those off to the
side somewhere.
Here you go, yeah, yeah.
Well, I hear that there's goingto be some discussion about the
exclusion of the actinides andlanthanides. Some other parts of
the game are you're going tohave these, a group of cards
that they say, sort of a rangein semicircles around each side.

(14:38):
That's not really necessary. Youcould just stack them up, and
each of those are going torepresent major groups of the
elements, so your non metals, oryour halogens, this is easier,
going to be easier to explainwhen we talk about how the
periodic table works, butbasically, groupings of elements
are arranged around the sides ofthe board. So the periodic table

(14:58):
is our game board. And whatwe're going to be doing is you
have your little marker, whichis an Erlenmeyer flask, which
we've already decided there isnothing more scientific than an
Erlenmeyer flask. Across the topof the board, you have a series
of cards. And these are like,these are your goals. So these
are groupings of elements. Theycan go from two to, I believe,
up to, I think it's just three,or is it four? Jason, do you

(15:19):
remember? Are there ever oneswhere it's only ever three,
right?

Jason (15:22):
Yeah, the goal cards only have up to three elements you
need to grab them. Okay?

Brian (15:25):
So, and these will be grouping. So, for instance,
toxic metals, arsenic andtellurium or mercury or other
toxic metals. There's actuallytwo distinct toxic metal cards.
There's three different cardsthat are based on groupings
related to steel. So there'siron and carbon, things that you
alloy with steel, and thenthere's stainless steel.

Jason (15:44):
There's the plant one, soil fertility, yeah. Plant
ones, NPK. There were a few thathad to do with lasers, some
precious metals like gold andsilver. And I don't think it was
gold, silver, platinum, butthere was something, oh, the
ones used in medicine, likelithium, magnesium and platinum,

Brian (16:01):
yeah. So they've they've gone out and they've found sort
of groupings of two or threeelements that you can pull
together to make some kind of aset or goal. And

Jason (16:09):
I bet this is why the lanthanides and actinides aren't
there. Is because there'srelatively few groupings of two
to three metals that they couldput together. And probably also
something to do with the way youmove on the board. It'd be hard
to get to them

Brian (16:20):
I think it's purely about how you move things on the
board. It's like, well, how doyou jump down to this separate
track of elements? But yeah, sothose goal cards, they've got
little like, fruity pebblemarkers that you'll mark, like
which elements are on the boardand where they are. And the game
is really about moving yourlittle Erlenmeyer flask to
different places on the periodictable. You want to land on that
element, and then you get tocollect it. So the way that you

(16:41):
move is you can move up and downby going up or down. Atomic
number,

Jason (16:45):
well, so okay move you say moving up and down, you're
actually moving left and right.

Brian (16:48):
That's a good point. Yes, thank you. You're moving left
and right on the periodic table,that is the one that actually
lets you wrap around the boardand go all the way from the
right to the left, because theperiodic table kind of has a Pac
Man effect, where when you getto the end of one column, you
actually wrap around and show upon the next column. I don't
know. Are any of our listenerstoo young to understand what Pac
Man is?

Jason (17:08):
Oh, definitely,

Raychelle (17:09):
it's made a comeback.

Brian (17:12):
So other things you can do is you can move up and to the
right, and this is calledincreasing ionization energy, or
you can move down to the left,which is increasing atomic
radii, increasing atomic mass ordecreasing atomic mass, is
either down into the right or upinto the left. And that's it.
You will. You get these littleenergy tokens. You pay one to do
one of those trends, move yourErlenmeyer flask one time. You

(17:33):
can pay two energy if you wantto do a second movement. And
you're just trying to collectthese elements. You get points
for collecting them. You'll havea private secret goal of like,
Oh, I'm trying to get, you know,a bunch of ones of different
difficulties, or something likethat. The only other thing to
contend with is there's two waysto finish the game. One is you
go all the way through one ofthose goal stacks of cards of

(17:55):
any difficulty. The other is, atthe bottom you've got this
academic track. So remember,around the side of the board,
we've got the groupings ofelements. Whenever you land on
one, if it's the next one in theseries, you kind of move a
little marker around, and thatlets you move up the academic
track

Jason (18:09):
whenever you end your turn on one. So it takes a
minimum of eight turns to go allthe way around.

Brian (18:15):
Okay, Jason, anything that you feel like I missed?

Jason (18:17):
No, I think that gets it. I like how you described the and
this not our word, we got thisfrom a YouTube video. The little
markers that say, Wait, markersthat say which elements are the
ones people want to be going forright now, based on the current
goal, cards, look like littlefruity pebbles. They like. I
would nominate those as the mostlikely piece to be eaten in this
entire game, because they lookexactly like some little candy.
Yeah. Like, even I look at it,I'm 40 some odd years old, I

(18:38):
look at it like this looks kindof tasty.

Brian (18:40):
Like, is that, like, you've got a tide pod effect for
the Fruity Pebbles.

Jason (18:44):
That's what it looks like. So I was like, I
definitely this one. Respect theage limit on this. Be careful if
you're around little kids,because they do look like they
should be sugary and sweet.

Brian (18:52):
So let's see. That'll be a new special category for
gaming with science most likelyto have pieces want to be eaten.
Speaking of which, this is not avery space hungry game. This
gets a high score on the bowl ofchips factor. There is
definitely room for to put abowl of snacks there. Just make
sure that you're not eating thegame pieces by mistake.
So that is the basics of thegame. Why don't we talk a little

(19:15):
bit about the science now? AndRachelle, you get to get a bunch
of questions about the periodictable. Is that? Okay? Okay, so
my first question is, what isthe periodic table?

Raychelle (19:24):
The periodic table is, you know, what I say to
about to students is, we don'tmake you memorize stuff, because
we put all the cool informationin a single table, and then we
literally post it everywhere onthe wall, shower curtain, table
cloth wall posters. What wewould say are, these are kind of
quote, the building blocks,right? And so the periodic table

(19:47):
is our quick reference to, whatare the build the Legos, the
chemistry Legos at our disposal,and it's organized. Of course,
you have, you know, people learnabout Mendeleev and. Kind of
first, you know, kind of toorganize it, besides the fact
that when you look at it, whenyou really understand how to
read any data table, it becomeseven more powerful, right? And

(20:10):
so to look at it and realizeit's organized, why we've
organized it the way we haveactually tells us something
about how the chemicals behave.Kind of organized. You have
columns and rows. And if you'rein columns, we like to call
those families. There's somesimilar behavior, but we know
with all families, there's goingto be the weirdo, the evil one,

(20:33):
so it's they've got. I look at avery big table, and I'm like,
wow, there's some realcharacters here. There's real
personalities. But with that,you can get an idea of how
things will behave and maybe howthey'll behave together, what
things will avoid each other.And so we've also organized the
periodic table. If you go from,say, left to right, you go from

(20:54):
metals to non metals. But thenthere's the fun, hydrogen,
right? So hydrogen is in groupone.

Brian (21:00):
Yeah, you're hitting a bunch of the questions I already
had,

Raychelle (21:02):
yeah, but you have to drop to super extreme
temperatures to see that kind ofmetal behavior of hydrogen. But
it is definitely, I mean, it isnumber one, right? So it goes
group one, number one. But whatyou'll see is periodic tables,
especially ones that are oftenkind of posted in places. They

(21:23):
try to be like, Sure, it's ingroup one, but let's put it up,
float it up here, because wedon't want people to think that
it's gonna, you know, some ofthe other things in group one,
yeah, the sodium, potassium,

Jason (21:36):
it's not gonna explode when you put it with water,

Raychelle (21:38):
it's not gonna Yeah, and it doesn't have the same
type of behavior as some butthen again, it does share
behavior where they're, youknow, kind of ionization energy,
where that that one electronactually pretty easy to boot
like energetically, the cost isis low, and that actually
dictates some of the chemistry.But we don't see the same type
of metallic behavior at kind ofthe same operational

(22:02):
temperatures. But then again, Iwould say with families is,
think about your family members.Do you have shared traits? Sure,
but then you always have thatone family member who's like,
and what are you doing overthere?

Brian (22:14):
Oh, yeah, no, I'm thinking about that right now.

Raychelle (22:18):
So, you know, there, there's also this
interesting thing is, you move,you know, down a family
sometimes, like they do thiswith birth order, which, you
know, that's not my area, right?But they talk about, what's that
older kid versus the middle kidsversus the baby? And if you go
with more, like light, medium,heavy, you see that there's some

(22:39):
real spread in behavior. Now,families are families. They do
have an operating kind of,here's our vibe. But even within
the families, there can bedifferences.

Brian (22:49):
Families are the columns, right?

Raychelle (22:50):
Families are the columns. Okay, so let's see, so
the so the periodic table,everything gets an atomic
number, and that is based on thenumber of protons that you have
in your nucleus. So, andactually that means that, like,
and we've talked about thisbefore, for all those people who
want to discover new elements,I'm sorry all of the spaces are
taken. The only place to getanything new is at the very

(23:11):
bottom of the list, because we,we know everyone has just one
more proton.
But, you know, the fun thing is,is, you know, we have currently
118 confirmed, and people aremaking there is some. I mean, if
you look at some, if you go toany of your alma maters, or
people might even remember thisfrom high school, they're like,
Wait, did she say 118 becauseI'm looking at period right, 114

(23:32):
or 112, or 109, right? When yousee and you're seeing ones that
might be kind of in inparentheses, or ones, it depends
on the age of your periodictable, right? And you can
actually see that there's been,hey, there's been some exciting
updates, right? Yeah. And sothat's kind of fun to see that.
I do want to back up and say,yeah. What I love about the

(23:52):
periodic table too, is, yes, wedesignate families, right, as
being columns. But in to carrymy kind of human family. A bit
further, there's the familyyou're born into, and then
there's the family you make,right? We have kind of circles
of emote, you know, circles ofkind of affinity.

Brian (24:08):
Are these out groupings. These are metalloids?

Raychelle (24:10):
These are groupings, right? Like you can have, well,
you can have alkali metal, youcan have alkali or, you know,
you have earth metals. You haveyour transition metals, which,
those are all actually indifferent families, but they
have a big block calledtransition metals. So it's like,
we try to say, Okay, who, which,which clan, gang group are you?

Brian (24:28):
So they're still, they're still to each other in their
overall behavior than they are,right?

Raychelle (24:33):
Because you can talk about, oh, I'm a transition
metal chemist, yeah, that's abig group, which one, or you can
say that, or even an entirefield called Organic Chemistry,
you're like, so, just carbon,just carbon. But they don't
really mean that, right? Theymight be focused on carbon,
carbon bonds, but there's a lotof other like chemistries

(24:54):
involved. But yeah, right.They're really exciting. I love,
I love a metalloid. I loveanybody who's like, I do
whatever. On, I can be a metal.I can be a non metal. I adapt.
Families are really cool

Brian (25:06):
Oh my gosh. We've touched on we've touched on so many
topics I was hoping to cover. Isit okay if I go in with some
more specific questions? Yeah,okay. So first of all, if I
could just we talked about acouple things there. Let's start
with the what are the familiesand where did their names come
from? So in the game, it'salkali metals, alkali earth

(25:27):
metals, transition metals, posttransition metals, metalloids,
halogens and noble gasses, someof those, I guess I get sort of
embedded in that question, asyou can imagine, is, why are
there so many metals, and whatmakes something a metal versus a
non metal?

Raychelle (25:42):
I mean, I think that that's a really interesting
question. I thinkphilosophically, because, you
know, I have a PhD and so, andmost, most, you know, chemists
have a Master's or PhD orbachelor's, is that here's where
you get to. The philosophicalpart is that we try to bin
things, and we try, often, to doit in discrete categories, but

(26:03):
that doesn't always work, right?And so what we've tried to do
with the periodic table, andnotice, I am using the royal we
you're like, you didn't have athing to do with the period
table!

Brian (26:15):
No, you speak for all chemists, it's fine.

Raychelle (26:18):
Ooh, is to is, is to find these relationships with
chemical properties or chemicalbehaviors, right? And so we try
to say, okay, what are somethings that are unique in that
group these things together intheir chemical behavior, right?
And we try, sometimes, to makethose bins too rigid: it is a

(26:42):
metal. It is a non metal. It isa there and then, and then the
metalloids show up and go,really, are you sure

Brian (26:51):
we definitely have the exact same problem in biology
all the time where we wantthings to fit nicely into bins.?
And you know what. naturedoesn't care about your bins

Raychelle (26:58):
It's a spectrum. And so as you actually look across
the Periodic Table, yeah, youknow, you can see this beautiful
range of metallic behavior. Andthen we have things that kind of
more fall if we think of it asmore of a spectrum, and we think
about things that are more onthe metal. Metal, like what we
think about as metals, is likeMetallica,

Brian (27:19):
Iron! Copper!

Raychelle (27:19):
but we think about things, you know, that they're
malleable, that they maybeconduct electricity, that's not
even all metals, right? But wethink about what we think is
metal behavior, right? And thenyou go across the Periodic
Table, and like most people, ifyou ask the common person, is
sodium and metal, they'll belike, is this a trick question?
What we think of in our mind asbeing like metallic behavior,

(27:42):
non metallic. And then you have,again, you have elements that
are like, I do, what I want. Ican, you know, and then what,
what is a non metal? What do wemean by we're so you're
identifying an element by whatit's not?

Brian (27:53):
By what it's not? Yeah, I was thinking about that too.
It's like, okay, so some of thetraits would be things like
malleability, conductivity wouldbe things that we think of. But
the thing is that thosedefinitions are kind of, it's,
well, I know a metal when I seeit a little bit

Raychelle (28:09):
It is. And then what you know, when you get things
into groups and you start makingcompounds, then you you can
start making things that you'relike, oh, but that now conducts
electricity, or gives offsparks, or we can do fun, which,
okay, then what are we saying?Is, what are these properties?
And then you, and that's the funthing about science, is we've

(28:31):
kind of got this on lock, butthen when we're able to
manipulate and build things thatyou're like, Oh, so this now can
act like this over here, andthat's kind of fun.

Brian (28:41):
I learned recently that there are some alloys that can
gain magnetic, that can becomemagnetic, even if they're made
from non magnetic startingmaterials,

Raychelle (28:51):
right? And so then what does that mean? Like
proper, if we've if you defineeverything by what you think it
can do and not do, right? When Imean, this is the philosophical
part. That is the grappling ofit that keeps, I think, a lot of
chemists, when you can like atthis top of the show, when you
can think, what is somethingthat blew your mind? When you
can read something that you'relike that is really has shaken

(29:13):
What do I understand this thingto be, right? And that's kind of
the really fun stuff. Is thateven when we think in 2025 we a
bit jaded sometimes withscientific thing, but when it
comes to the fundamental thingof what do you mean it is that
that can still blow your mind iskind of fun.

Brian (29:34):
Sometimes in chemistry, you're adding one and two and
you're getting seven,

Raychelle (29:38):
which, again, loving it for us, because then you, you
know, people think, like,hydrogen bonding, right? They're
like, Oh, yeah. The Internet,whatever. We were finding out
new things all the time aboutthis interaction. And I'm sure
in biology, given thefundamental importance of
hydrogen bonding to proteinstructure,

Brian (29:56):
to, like, literally the entire thing, like, it's all,
yeah, they. That you're likewhat we, you know, together,
your DNA, yeah.

Raychelle (30:04):
And I think that, you know, when I look at the
periodic table, even though wetry to give it, you know, firm,
you know, there are thesecolumns, are families, and there
are blocks, and we have this, isthis? What you actually are
seeing is a spectrum ofproperties and behavior, which
gives us a lot of dynamicflexibility, right to have, and

(30:27):
it also just looking around,going Well, that explains this
wild show that we're seeing,right? But, you know, if you
like, if you get rubidium, andyou give it enough energy of
electronic transition is that itemits this beautiful, kind of,
hard to describe the color ofred, that it's kind of, kind of,
I would say that, you know, apurplish red, okay, but not, not

(30:50):
quite a burgundy. But there'sjust something that's really
beautiful color. So whilerubidium itself, you're like,
snooze fest, right in thephysical appearance of it. There
are these dynamic we can doemission spectrum. It's one of
the ways we can characterize allthe elements in a periodic
table. Or what are the uniqueelectronic transitions? And some

(31:12):
are in the visible range that wecan see pretty colors, that's
fireworks. You're looking atemission spectroscopy, yeah. And
luckily, there's beauty partsyou can see, and we can make
green and yellow and purple andred and really fun stuff. And so
even though we might look at theelements and be like, boring,
boring, boring, boring, is that,if we put a little bit of energy

(31:34):
in, which is what I love, too,about the game, is they got the
currency, right? There's no suchthing as a free lunch,
everything costs.

Brian (31:39):
Yeah, actually, there's this other conceit in the game
where energy is not created ordestroyed, it just gets moved
around the board. Except it'snot true for one specific reason
that I think, like in there'sone circumstance in a two player
game where you actually get toget some new energy out of the
box.

Jason (31:56):
I think that's just because there's not enough
energy floating around with onlytwo players for that to work.
But honestly, that's such a badcall most of the time. We never
even used that move because it'slike, just getting one energy
for that is just such a badchoice.

Raychelle (32:09):
See, I think at that point the game should just,
like, explode and no, aphysicist should just pop out
and go, no, yeah.

Jason (32:21):
So actually, I've got some question about some of
these odd balls you mentioned.So you said, how, like, in these
families, there's always theblack sheep, the weirdo one, so
there's some ones, I know.

Raychelle (32:31):
So that's a judgment. I shouldn't be that judgmental,
but I am.

Jason (32:35):
Okay, they're weird. Yeah, let's, let's put I'm gonna
look point. I'm pointing rightat Mercury here. It's like,
liquid metal room temperature.What is going on there? What
about that combination of thatfamily in that row? How on earth
do you get something that is aliquid metal at room
temperature?

Brian (32:51):
You also got gallium, which is a liquid metal at
slightly above room temperature,right?

Raychelle (32:54):
The minute you put it in your hand

Brian (32:56):
, yeah, right. I want to get some gallium. I want some
gallium. Yeah.

Raychelle (32:59):
And I think, like again, but they are the it's no
one else in their family. That'sit, right? And so doesn't that
like? That is, I mean, people,you know, and I am not in a
metallic or transition metalchemist or heavy metal chemist,
but I could see why people wouldbe absolutely obsessed with

(33:19):
mercury or gallium to be like,what is, I mean, it isn't even
within its family. Yes, thereare shared traits, but even
within its families, it's theone that is doing, like, what's
happening here, right? And, andthen the unique properties that
that unfolds, I mean to me that,besides the liquid mercury is
that is the high cohesion,right? You, you, quote, spill

(33:41):
mercury, you pour it, it's likelittle bot, and it just rolls
around like, and you're justlike, it doesn't. It has a lot
of cohesion between the atomswhere it's not like if you pour
water, what a mess, right? Itspreads. It wets the surface,
true? There is this alsochemical interaction where the
mercury is like it

Jason (34:00):
It doesn't. It's not touchy feely. It does not like
to touch other things.

Raychelle (34:03):
It does not like to wet. And I like, you know, there
isn't this kind of, you know,just distribution of that matter
across a large surface area.It's actually like, No, we don't
like to hang out with you otherpeople. We want to be by
ourselves. And so, like, whatare, you know, those are some
interesting features. But again,I would come back to every
family has, you know, and again,I'm putting my own, but that's

(34:26):
how we could understand theperiodic table. Is, what are
these groups, families? Andthere's the again, there's so
many circles of connectivitywhere, even when, and oftentimes
across the rows, you know,people very much focus on
columns. But then when we lookat big blocks of behavior, like
even we mentioned earlier thatlanthanides and the antsides and

(34:47):
the lanthanides, right, that's arow that's a different way
there. They do have sharedbehavior, and there's a whole
group of chemists that aretransition metals, but then
their subset is, ah, but we'refirst row transition metal.

Brian (34:59):
So I guess everybody's got to have their little niche
on the table,

Raychelle (35:05):
Well, it turns out that there's unique behavior
with that first row transition.So what we're finding out is,
even in the, you know, 100 plusodd years we've had, what we
would think is the structure ofthe periodic table is that it
also reveals what some of thegenius was of binning them in
their behavior. We're stilllearning about the elements.

(35:27):
We're still deciding that, hey,yes, there are the column
behavior, but there's also rowdynamics, but there's also this
bigger kind of bigger groupbehavior that we see. And so I
think that's what I also likedabout the game, is that it tries
to get you to get a bit ofexposure to, hey, there's a lot

(35:49):
of property. There's a way wecan group these things, not just
by columns, but we also have totalk about, what are some
energies involved, right wherethey're kind of located. And I
think it, hopefully it givespeople an idea of this table is
organized, yes, by atomicnumber, right? But the more
important thing, at least foras, my opinion, as a chemist, is

(36:12):
that it's organized based onfunction. But as I'm sure, as a
biologist, right away, youshould be like, and that's
structure, right? Yes, is that?And at this stage, though, it's
structure at the atomic level,yeah. So you're looking at both.
You're getting it's just jampacked full of information on
the periodic table.

Brian (36:31):
There's a reason that the periodic table appears on
napkins and shower curtains.It's just It's probably one of
the most beautifulrepresentations of science,
right? One of the, one of thereal victories of science is the
periodic table.

Raychelle (36:45):
We got good branding.

Brian (36:47):
Yeah, great branding, great branding.

Raychelle (36:49):
And Good job with the color coding. Yeah, I feel like
that's the other thing is, like,if we make it color coded,

Brian (36:55):
it's like, I think the the we talked about how the
Erlenmeyer flask is the mostsciencey thing, DNA, the
periodic table,

Raychelle (37:02):
yep, there are just certain symbols.

Brian (37:04):
These are the lucky charms of of science. Well, we
touched on this a little bit,but I did want to ask you said
the first column transitionmetals. So we've got yttrium,
which I know is one that youobviously like, because you use
it in your social media, andthen scandium, and then you jump
down, and those two boxes expandout into entire rows, and like,
you've got some interestingplayers in there, like uranium,

(37:27):
Neptunium, Plutonium, how do theOkay? Why are the actinides and
lanthanides in quarantine, intheir own separate space on the
table? And how do they relate toyttrium and scandium, which are
not

Raychelle (37:41):
if you look at the the atomic number right? You you
jump from barium, which is grouptwo, and you see a 56 and you're
like, super and then you goright down radium, is that,
quote, last element in grouptwo, and it is 88 and then all
of a sudden, you move to thetransition metals, which is
right next door. And you seethat, Okay, number wise, you

(38:02):
like, okay, 57, 89 and then youmove again, and you're like, am
I going insane, or is that itgoes 57, 72 Yeah, it goes 89
104, now I'm sure that thereare, you know, people will say,
oh, there's good they did. Theywanted it to be rectangular,

(38:23):
yeah.

Brian (38:23):
They wanted it to fit on a single page.

Raychelle (38:24):
It is a space saving move, yeah, fit on it, which
makes us, you know, fit on asingle printable sheet and and
sometimes, depending on who'sproduced the periodic table,
like, if you look at the NISTperiodic table, or one of the
great versions, which is one Iuse a lot in my classroom.

Jason (38:44):
And this is like National Institute of what standards and
technology?

Raychelle (38:48):
Yes, so NIST is National Institute Standards and
Technology is that they actuallydo this cool thing, which they
show the ribbon effect of afterbarium and radium, because where
it's split is also veryinteresting is that some
periodic tables will split it atLA, you know, and AC. And what

(39:10):
the NIST periodic table does isit's actually shows you a ribbon
that kind of floats from the twoand then the ribbon connects it
to the lower so that people willclue into the fact of No, no,
these, these should actually gosmack right here, which would
push the periodic table

Brian (39:28):
way, way, way, WAY longer, way, way,

Raychelle (39:31):
like a baguette, yeah,

Jason (39:33):
long and thin.

Raychelle (39:35):
And so I, you know, it's a space saving move. I
mean, it makes sense printingwise and kind of to condense it,
but what it does is sometimesalmost out of sight, out of
mind.

Brian (39:48):
I mean, that's very true in this game, which we're going
to come back to for the nitpicksection.

Jason (39:53):
And I have a question about this, actually, so my you
mentioned how the structure ofthe periodic table is due to the
structure of the elements. And IWant to confirm if I've got this
in my head, right, because Iseem to remember from high
school chemistry, the reason whyyou have the jumps where you do,
why you have the number in rows,is because it's it's not the
proton. So as much as it's theelectrons that orbit around

(40:14):
them, it's like the first likelayer you can stick electrons
in. Only has space for two,which is why there's only two
elements in the first one, andthen, like the next layer.

Raychelle (40:22):
So we have a numeric order, which would be, why, if
you count over, you should have,you know, goes up by one, but
you're absolutely right where,then you can get to the
principal quantum number. And ifyou count down where you have,
you will go 1, 2,3, 4, and thatis the one, like you would say
with. And orbitals are notactual physical locations. They

(40:42):
are probability distributionmaps of where the electrons
should be,

Jason (40:47):
We are not getting into Quantum mechanics this episode

Brian (40:52):
We gotta find a different game to talk about that for
sure,

Raychelle (40:54):
but that quantum energy level is is sometimes on
the periodic table that whatagain, is so jam packed full of
information. But besides thegroup number, which would be
across the top left to right,there are numbers that go from
that first row right down andit's seven. And remember that
the lanthanides and theactinides are actually six and

(41:16):
seven, because they should slotback in. Those are the energy
levels, right? So like whentalking about electronic
configuration, which again, isour construction of trying to
organize spatially, where arethe probability distribution
maps? Is we say that you havethe lowest energy to the highest
energy, so one through seven,and that's also that great

(41:39):
organization is also telling youabout, okay, where spatially
these things are. So there isboth organization on, on, on the
entire atomic level, right wherewe talk about where the two big
subatomic particles that we tendto spend a lot of time on, which
would be proton number, yeah,and electron number, or electron

(42:00):
density. That's a really, it's afun I mean, when you look at it,
we often, again, focus on atomicnumber, but you're absolutely
right. There is. It is alsotelling you about electron
density, which gets us back tothe trend, right? Because you're
talking about ionization energy.Yeah, it's one of the big
trends, atomic radius, which hasto deal with both, well, the
interaction right between thepull of you have all these

(42:22):
electrons which hate each other,but also attracted to this dense
positive core like and then themore you add and the more you
know, then you get this kind ofsize. So you actually have a
couple different properties thatare dealing with the fact of you
have to look at the holisticapproach of the atom. You have
to look at the protons, theelectrons. You have to look at

(42:44):
the interplay between them, ifyou try to remove them, if you
add more, if you have less. Andso that's what you're looking
at.

Brian (42:50):
Do we have to look at the neutrons? Or can we just ignore
the neutrons?

Raychelle (42:53):
No, I love I love a neutron moment because they're
sly. They're very massive. Ilove that because they're sly.
They're just like, we don't havea charge, so no one, we're just
going to be over here. They'remassive, like, just, you know,
they the electrons are puny, butthey're negative, so everyone
focuses on them, yeah, they'realso important in bonding. I
shouldn't dismiss them, but, butthe neutrons, right? You get

(43:15):
isotopes which are so critical,you know, and so telling. I love
isotopes because they aresnitches.

Jason (43:23):
Can you define what an isotope is?

Brian (43:25):
Wait, wait, I want to, I want to jump back, and then I
want to come back to neutrons.So we've got the atomic number
is the number of protons, right?Yep, but the number of protons
determines the number ofelectrons, and all chemistry
really is about those electrons,right? And where they are? No,
it's not the electrons

Raychelle (43:43):
I mean you want to reduce, You want to reduce an
entire field to one subatomicparticle. Is that? Is that what
we're doing? Okay?

Brian (43:52):
Let's do it this way. What percentage of chemistry is
defined by the electrons?

Raychelle (43:56):
I wouldn't even but that's, but that's still trying
to reduce it down to a singleparticle, when really we got to
talk about relationships

Brian (44:02):
Okay, I guess I'm breaking the whole thing that
you just said about the holisticnature of an individual atom is,
electrons are important. Protonsare important. Neutrons are
important too.

Raychelle (44:11):
If it was just electrons like that doesn't get
us to Why do certain bonds formand others don't? Okay? So the
electrons, I'm not sayingthey're not important, but we
can't ignore that. There is alot of other stuff going on. We
said with ionization energy,there are trends, right? If you
the first group removing thatfirst electron, relatively easy

(44:32):
peasy. You try to remove thesecond electron, though, we're
gonna fight that is the energycost jumps enormously, and
that's because you have got, youknow, the the force right of all
that positive charge now you'veremoved an electron. But what's
actually happened too is thatattractive force between those

(44:53):
subatomic particles is actuallyeven more like trying to remove
a second electron. That energycost is prohibitive. And anyone
who plays the game and wants totry it, I'm not even sure you
can do it, because it's like afirst ionization. It's just
going with first ionizationsacross the trend. But as
students will recall, if you tryto remove from lithium the

(45:14):
second electron, good luck. Imean, you can do it, but it is
going to cost you an enormousamount of energy, and that is
not only about the electron.That's about the pull of the
nucleus is now that attractiveforce, because you actually have
more positive than negative,because you've tipped the
balance, and now we're pullingoff the second electron is much

(45:36):
harder. Is that just an electronproblem? Because that sounds
like that's a that's an atomic

Jason (45:42):
Yeah, yeah. And I've, I've got another one that I
learned at Dragon Con this pastyear. And Raychelle, I don't
remember if you were on thispanel. So we talked about
isotopes, which is where youhave extra neutrons, or fewer
neutrons in the nucleus.Apparently, if you use heavy
water, so yes, water where thehydrogen has extra neutrons in
it, yeah, it tastes sweet. Itactually changes the flavor of

(46:04):
the water because it changessome interaction of like this.
The way the water behaves andhow it affects our sweet
receptor.

Brian (46:10):
I think that our sweet receptors are broken, the number
of things that are not sugar,that tastes sweet. I mean,
artificial sweeteners, water,lead, yeah. I mean, come on.

Raychelle (46:20):
But I think that that, again, that tells you
right the bait and switch. But Ithink so. Isotopes are you have
the option of differing numbersof neutrons, and you can get to
heavier. We often say that,okay, what's the and it's about
probability. What's the onethat's most frequently
occurring? And then you mighthave a soupçon of others,

(46:40):
although there are some elementswhere it's nearly, you know,
it's actually like a two thirds,1/3 or a 50/50, split. But so
you have those kind of varietyand and with water, again, taste
is perception. So you you gavepeople that, and you asked them
to rate it. So part of it isperception. And I'm sure all of

(47:01):
the people doing human studiestrial, when you ask people those
questions, that's got to be donein a very specific way. But the
science of it is, you know thatthat even that slight change in
mass and and how you know thecompound and the receptor
interact there, there is thispotential that you have this
difference in how it's perceivedby the taster now, most of the

(47:25):
time with isotopes, especiallyforensically, what we can kind
of use them for is because wehave mapped out we know so much
about the statistical portionright of all of these elements
and their isotopes. We've alsomapped out the world in a lot of
isotopic abundance for some keyelements like oxygen, hydrogen,

(47:46):
carbon, and the proportion, say,in different ocean waters, in
different soil types, indifferent parts of the world,
and also different elements likestrontium, that it can actually
be really helpful when you'retrying to link up. Where did
this come from in the world? Andone big way that it's used in
forensics is identifying, say,there was a really great special

(48:09):
issue in a forensic sciencejournal about identifying
civilians and combatants thatwere involved in kind of actions
in World War One, and they had alot of, unfortunately, huge mass
graves, right? Large numbers ofcasualties, but then trying to
match people up. Now, when wehave the technology to do so, to

(48:29):
do identification, sure we haveDNA, we can get but you still
have to, then I still needenough information to get a
standard from a living familymember. You've got to, you've
got to narrow it down. If weliterally are looking at this
open grave in Flanders orsomething, and you're like,
Well, where are the combatantsfrom? Where should I even look
to get this information? So theywere using isotopic abundance to
say, hey, in the formativeyears, when your bones are

(48:51):
really growing and forming andyou're really taking uptake of
those elements, certain keyelements, turns out Canada, and
not only Canada, but aparticular region to Canada they
were able to identify goingback, well, we need to go to the
Canadian Armed Forces, and weneed to say, Okay, who was in
this part of this country inthis time, and that so helped
narrow it down, right that theycan then say, have a discrete

(49:14):
amount of samples they cancollect with DNA, and say it
needs to be Canadian forcesdeployed here. From here, it
really helps narrow it down,because of we have so much
information on the probabilitydistribution of those elements.
So to me, isotopes, they're theMVPs. They help us track so much
stuff. Forensically, I have aspecial place in my heart.

(49:36):
There's certain elements thatdenote that, hey, you had a lot
of seafood or access to kind ofsea based stuff versus, Oh, you
were probably having more ofgrains that. And then grains,
you know, where do we get mostof those from in this country?
And then if more cattle or morebeef, so even that can still be

(49:58):
really helpful. And. Help kindof point to what do you have
access to, sometimes, mostly,again, your really formative
years when the when the bonesare really on the uptake, and so
that can still be reallyhelpful. It's super helpful too.
With tracking, this is going tosound weird, but linking
together drugs, certain, right?If you're growing, say, like

(50:19):
cocaine, natural product, evenif it's purely synthetic. What
was the water source used forthat synthesis? What were the
solvents where they purchasedsome of these things from that
could still and if you're tryingto link up, say, a particular to
see is this all the same kind ofmanufacturing chain? You're not
even trying to perhaps localizeit to where in the world is

(50:40):
Carmen Sandi-, no, you're tryingto link it

Brian (50:44):
up notorious drug lord. Carmen Sandiego,

Raychelle (50:46):
yeah, that I did not say that do not come for me,
Disney or whoever Conglomerateis, is, are these batches
produced in a very similar waywhere they you know this, this
huge distribution. Is the kilofound here? Is it chemically
linked to the kilo over here?Interesting, right? And so that

(51:07):
kind of information, besidesjust a good general chemical
scan of what compounds and whatproportion the isotopic
abundance can also be veryrevealing about what are the
water sources, what are thesolvent compositions that might
have been employed? And so, youknow, that's why sometimes I
joke that isotopes are snitches,but I mean that in the best way.

Brian (51:31):
So isotopes, same number of protons, increase neutrons,
and I think I've had thisexplained that, like biology is
lazy and will favor the lighterversion of that isotope. So
you'll see accumulation oflighter carbon, for instance,

Jason (51:47):
I think that depends, because, I mean, one of the
things I think Raychelle wasmentioning is you can tell like
carbon source. So corn uses acertain type of photosynthesis
different from like wheat andrice, and they end up with
different carbon isotope ratiosfrom that. So you can tell if
you had a more corn based dietor more wheat and rice. And I
know here in the US, it turnsout that we're all eating
secondhand corn, because most ofthe corn we grown is actually

(52:10):
fed to animals, yeah, pigs andcows and chicken and so we're
getting all like our diet whenyou're if you're here in the US
and you're eating beef orchicken or pork, you're probably
actually eating corn basedstuff, as opposed to some other
and you can tell that in the theratios of the carbon that are in
your body,

Raychelle (52:28):
yeah, I mean, and also in food fraud, it's a big
thing butter from grass fedcows. And you're like, first of
all, this better be butter, notmargarine, because we have real
strict laws, right? But also,you've said a certain type of
feeding for this cow. Well,isotopes, interesting, will
really clock that. And so it'sbecome too a way that

Jason (52:50):
listeners didn't see this, but she put it the whole
like, point up, pointed her eyeslike, I got my eyes on you

Raychelle (52:55):
I got my eyes on you, right? So isotopes will help us
get real ideas about sources ofstuff, but it all, it all comes
back down to probability. Wehave low probability. We have
high probability stuff. Andthat's why, you know, getting
these backgrounds, you've got tohave a good set of what's, what
is the probability for, justlike this area, this background,

(53:18):
they've also done this with wesaw in certain parts of the
world, historically, like, leadpipes were the like, and, I
mean, like, Roman Right? Like,they were like, Oh, the fall of
the Roman Empire, which, by theway, is never on my mind on a
daily basis. But the fall of theRoman Empire, it's because there
were so many lead pipes. Or,like, you know, there's if a
person was, a historical person,was poisoned. You're like, oh,

(53:41):
it's arsenic. Well, you alsohave to get the background of
where was the person at, becausethere's actually arsenic just
that appears in your person.There's also, if you're buried
in the ground, what was thesoil? Did it leach in? And so
one of the first things they'lldo is, okay, well, what's,
what's the background? Here'sthe target of the person, we
think, is poison. Now getsamples from everybody else in

(54:02):
the graveyard. Well, noteverybody, but some proportion,
right? And then what's thebackground so you can get Okay,
is this actually a signal? Is itactually significantly greater,
gotcha, or is this just like thenorm?

Brian (54:16):
Awesome. I think we should probably start wrapping
up at this point. I did want toask Raychelle, do you have a
favorite board game that youlike to play?

Raychelle (54:23):
Yes, well, I grew up in a family that played board
games and but I'm gonna go superretro, and I'm gonna go with
monopoly.

Brian (54:31):
Okay, all right, we haven't had anybody say monopoly
yet.

Raychelle (54:33):
I gonna saw monopoly because my family, we would play
Monopoly and monopoly like wewould be like, we're never
playing this game again, becausewe would always fight. It never
went well. It really reveals alot about how greedy people are
and how closely they willbankrupt you. But on the other
hand, there was just somethingabout that game that we you

(54:55):
could just It was wild, like Ihad some of the funnest nights
was playing and just realizinghow crafty, especially I'm like
my mom is viscous, and she isthe nicest lady I know, but she
will be like, I love you. I'mtaking all of your hotels.

Brian (55:16):
Actually let's, let's move into our nitpick corner,
because I think it's time forthat. This is where we do, well,
actually, or this isn't quiteright, or we love this game, but
so Rachelle, go. You havesomething teed up, I can tell.

Raychelle (55:28):
Well, you know, part of it too was the groups they
chose. Like, the was it, they'recalled Goal Cards, the,

Brian (55:35):
yes, the groupings of elements,

Jason (55:37):
yeah, like, two or three elements that have some common
theme to them that help youcollect points,

Brian (55:41):
yeah? Like, toxic, yeah? Just something that connects
these in terms of how we usethem,

Raychelle (55:45):
yeah, I think. But again, I mean, I was like, these
are the ones they use? but Ialso, I just look at the
periodic table based on my I'man analytical chemist. I'm a
forensic Chemist. I look at itin a different way, as we all
should. So that's a very pettykind of thing. But also, again,
they booted some of the coolestelements. They were like, we
don't want, we don't want theseones down here.

Brian (56:07):
So literally, uranium is not on the list.

Jason (56:13):
That maybe they were saving that for the expansion.
The trend now is that yourelease a board game and you
already have the first threeexpansions planned. Maybe they
have the lanthanide and actinideexpansion,

Raychelle (56:23):
then that is flip the script. And I'm like, brilliant,
because I would get it just tobe like, is that in expansion
pack one? One like that would beso cool. Also, the wraparound,
there's only one trend that letsyou wrap around. They were like,
You can't do that with any ofthe other trends. And I was
like, watch me, yeah.

Jason (56:44):
So my, my nitpick is a little bit related to that, and
just has to do with the goalcards, because we noticed this
as we were going through theelements are not represented
equally.

Brian (56:52):
No, not even close

Jason (56:53):
some elements show up time again and again and again,
and some elements you'll neversee on a goal card. And I just
would have, I'd like, I mean,realize there's only so many
things you can make groups ofthat your average consumer would
actually recognize, but it stillbe nice to have those spread
out. And it did feel like thedifficulty of collecting the
goals was not correlated to thenumber of points you got. I

(57:17):
didn't do a thoroughinvestigation of that, but it
seems like it should be like,okay, the harder goals, like
goals difficulty two, three andfour all require three elements
each. So there should be, itshould require, like, more moves
to get the ones at level fourand then level two. And I assume
there are, but it didn't reallyfeel like there were definitely
times where, like, oh, in thisone turn, I can collect the

(57:37):
level three goal just with mynormal moves.

Brian (57:39):
Some of those goal cards were weird. It was like, the the
element in its group with thelowest heat capacity. It's like,
you say that these are thingsthat average people know that is
a weird like, I had to look thatup. It's like, what does that
mean? It's like, I know waterhas anyway. My my nitpick is
similar to Raychelle's is theexclusion of the lanthanides and

(57:59):
the actinides. But that's notright, is it? How have you been
saying it?

Raychelle (58:02):
no, no, don't. Do not go with me there,

Brian (58:04):
okay. All right. All right, sorry, sorry,

Jason (58:06):
I think we've determined the elements are like dinosaurs.
It doesn't matter how you say.

Brian (58:11):
There's not an official Pronunciation Guide. That may
very well be true. The thing is,okay, I understand the utility.
I understand why they did it. Istill think they have a booklet,
like all genius games, thescience in the game, it would
have been very easy to put afull periodic table in there,
and they didn't even put itthere. It's like, you know, your
game is periodic you got theperiodic table. Just show one

(58:32):
periodic table where you haven'texcluded these. Do you know what
I mean, just take one page,

Raychelle (58:37):
and I would have liked to see some Goal Cards. I
mean, again, this is just ajudgment call, but if you're
building, if you're using thisgame in a classroom or in some
kind of a science camp thing, Ithink a fun thing would be like,
what is the expansion pack thatyou would build? Right? Because
then you might have people belike, you know, what? What about
like, I move diagonally? It'slike, Yeah, but if I want to
move along the metalloids,you're going to have to do a

(58:59):
diagonal move. Like, what aresome fun? What's some new rules?
And what's a new expansion pack?Like, talking about, you know,
your things that are naturallyliquids at ambient, what we
define as ambient temperature,things that are gasses. What is
the fun expansion packs andgroups that they would come up
with? Like, what are yourbiologically significant? You
know, sometimes there's tons ofelements on the periodic table.

(59:22):
And, you know, you get tobiology, and you're like, these
seven, because then, then youprime people to think like, and
they're surprised when you havezinc that shows up and is
critical, right?

Brian (59:33):
I mean, it's CHON, it's CHON, let's be it's carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.Phosphorus gets to play to

Raychelle (59:40):
Like, it's like, going to gap and getting khaki
pants in a black shirt. You'relike, again, you're like,

Brian (59:46):
but they're the Lego bricks of everything.

Raychelle (59:49):
But, yeah, but we there's a reason for that. What
are the fundamentals, right?What are the key things you
have?

Brian (59:55):
Either new rules or new game, new goal cards would be
really fun, right? Yeah? Like,hey, come up with some new goal
cards,

Raychelle (01:00:00):
new goal cards, new what are different trends? Maybe
there are people that want totalk about, hey, what are some
different trends? And I thinkthat that's the fun thing about
this game, is even when you'recritical about a game and people
like, Well, I would have donethis, and I will then do it,
yeah, for sure. Then you come upwith the modification. Because
then, especially in a teachingtool like this, or even a fun

(01:00:23):
game, in order to come up withan expansion pack, new goal
cards, new rules. That means youknow a hell of a lot about it,
and my master plan to trap youinto learning chemistry has, in
fact, succeeded,

Brian (01:00:36):
all right. Well, I think this is again, Rachelle, you are
wonderful at helping ustransition between sections, as
the conversation just kind ofgoes, but why don't we move into
grades? Because I think we'retalking about what we like about
this game. I am happy to gofirst. I think that for the
science here, I'm trying todecide how much I want to ding
it for the actinide lanthanidething. And I think I'm going,

(01:00:58):
I'm actually, I'm not going todock it. I think that the
intentionality is there. I thinkthat the practice using the
periodic table, because that'sreally what this is. We the
periodic table is our gameboard. We've had other games
where the periodic table wasjust where you kept track of
your score. Here, it's all aboutthe periodic table. And you
learn a lot about the periodictable just by playing the game.

(01:01:19):
You got to when the new goalcard comes up, he's like, Okay,
where is this element? Right?Like, without even realizing it,
playing this game, you arepracticing and familiarizing
yourself with how the periodictable is laid out, where things
are found, how they relate toone another. I have no issue
giving it an A on science. Ithink for fun, I did enjoy it.
It's quick. I even beat Jason byone point, which has never

(01:01:41):
happened before in the entiregaming with science, every game
that we've played, with theexception of one bonus episode,
this is the first time Ilegitimately beat him by one
point. So it should be more funfor me for that reason. But
actually, no, I'm still probablyjust going to give it a B. I
don't think this is going toenter into my regular roster.

Jason (01:01:59):
Yeah, I'll agree. I'll agree with both those. I will
give it an A for science. Ithink that it represents what it
wants to represent. Well, Ithink you can't play this game
without learning about theperiodic table and chemistry,
including the grouping ofelements for the goals. I think
is an interesting thing thathelps you think about some
stuff. Also just the trends oflike, Oh, if I move this
direction, that is increasingionization energy, if I move

(01:02:20):
this direction, things get theradius gets bigger, like these
properties of atoms that I don'tusually think about because I'm
not a chemist. You can't playthe game without becoming
familiar with them. So I think Afor science is perfectly fine.
I'd also put it a B for gameplayand fun,

Brian (01:02:35):
because I beat you

Jason (01:02:36):
No, actually. So just because, when I played, and I
actually, I did do the like testrun myself before we played it
together. And both times I feltlike, once I was like, four or
five turns is like, Okay, I nowunderstand the game. Now it's
just the process of playing itout. Felt like the strategic
depth of it that I usually gofor games is not quite there. I

(01:02:58):
again, put it as B, I would notbe opposed to playing it. But
I'm probably not going to go forthis as my my choice pick.

Brian (01:03:04):
I think this is an excellent game for the
classroom. I really do easy andquick to learn, quick to play,
and like really, just withouteven realizing it, you are
learning about the periodictable. You have to

Jason (01:03:15):
now. Raychelle, what do you think

I'm gonna go with the B minus?

Jason (01:03:20):
Oh, wow, okay. Oh, the chemist has weighed in,

no, but I think what I found, yeah, sure, there's the
missing parts of periodic table,but I was like, why is this
called an academic track? True,like, but also, like, the goal
cards, but that I'm just like,but that's that gets to a
personal preference that's notreally about, okay, the quality

(01:03:46):
of the game. There are othergames that are very popular that
I'm like, not for me, right?Like, so, but what I could see,
and I would, I would give it, Iwould move it into the A
category, is that there is, isusing it in the classroom, and
then having giving students thefreedom to Modify and Expand the
game. Because I think that thepotential of the game is for

(01:04:09):
them to do what we're doing isto really be critical to think
about gameplay, but also tothink about how would I modify,
revise, expand, correct. And Ithink there's a real useful
power in that.

Brian (01:04:23):
So as a lesson coupled to critical peer review, this would
be an A

yes. And I think that that that part. And also, can we
talk about the little I love, anearlenmeyer flask I love, like
the gate, like the tokens andthe energy. I think the energy
tokens, too is everything costs.There is no so I there is a lot
of parts that I like. So maybe Iam a as, maybe, wow, maybe I

(01:04:49):
agree with my students. I'm aharsh grader. Maybe,

Brian (01:04:52):
maybe, maybe this should be a B and not a b minus that.

I think you're right. I will, I will modify. look at
me. Look at the growth. I willsay

Brian (01:05:06):
you haven't had a chance to play it yet. So did you want
to try to give it a maybe not afun but interested in playing?

I watched the videos about the game. Yeah, I would. I
think actually I would like toplay the game, because I'm
wondering if some of myharshness is because of just
trying to wrap my head aroundabout, like this seemed kind of
a bit awkward about Wait, thereit goes. There's a stuff, and
I'm I'm watching it being playedis very different than being in

(01:05:34):
it and actually having thetactile experience.

Jason (01:05:37):
All right, so we need to wrap up, Raychelle, where can
people find you?

Ah, you can find me on the crime ridden streets of
DC. No, it's not. It's we're ata 30 year low, everybody. But
no, you can find me on socialmedia, radium, vitrium, and also
doctor a video on Tiktok.

Brian (01:05:55):
You also write for I was, I was looking on your Tiktok. It
links to some opinion pieces.

Yeah, I write a column, a forensic science
column called Trace analysis,where, if you want to learn more
about like, I literally havewritten about, like, isotopes
helping crack a butter fraudcase, and and and vampire DNA
work in a graveyard. Yes, it istrue. Salem, witch trials. So

(01:06:22):
what's the forensic sciencethere? So check out my column,
trace analysis at chemistryworld for all things creepy
science and crime ridden.

Brian (01:06:31):
That's awesome. And then, do you do Dragon Con? Every
year?

I have been doing it every year. So I was on that
panel Jason about the weird kindof physics things, which was
kind of fun, because I'm like,how am I on this column? This on
this panel, but yes, I plan tobe back next year doing more
weird stuff.

Brian (01:06:48):
All right, we're trying to collect people from each of
the tracks at Dragon Con.

That would be awesome. Yes, yes.

Brian (01:06:55):
All right, I think with that, we should probably wrap it
up.

So fun to talk to you guys.

Brian (01:07:00):
Thank you for joining us. I hope you have a great month
and great games.

Jason (01:07:03):
And as always, everyone have fun playing dice with the
universe. See ya.

Brian (01:07:08):
This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright
2025 listeners are free to reusethis recording for any non
commercial purpose, as long ascredit is given to gaming with
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts,
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games thatwe talked about, we encourage
you to do so through yourfriendly local game store. Thank
you and have fun playing dicewith the universe.

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S2E09 - Periodic (the Periodic Table)

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